One of the driving forces in connectors today is towards greater pin density. A simple solution to this demand is to merely increase the number of pins within a given connector. However, since the wires to all of the pins in the connector are usually bundled into a single insulated cable and the pins are permanently attached within the connector, this presents significant repair problems. When a single pin or wire fails, the entire connector assembly must be replaced. Various configurations have been suggested to address this need, such as those in U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,867 to Seidel et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,960 to Asick et al. However, these connectors are complex to manufacture and assemble, and the pins within each connector are not equally spaced. Thus, optimum pin density is not achieved.
Additionally, as the electrical performance of the cable increases, it becomes more difficult to prevent electrical interference from surrounding cables and devices, and more important to properly ground the cable. Various configurations have been disclosed to ground the cable. U.S. Pat. No. 3,141,924 covers the cable termination with a crimped sleeve which has a grounding tab. U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,501 places a metallic U-shaped insulation-piercing grounding element on the cable termination. And U.S. Pat. No. 4,641,906 surrounds the cable termination in a grounding metallic case. Each of these grounding configurations requires a separate additional part to be manufactured and added in the assembly of the connector. There is still a need for connectors capable of high pin density, economic manufacture and assembly, which are easy to repair, and readily grounded and adequately protected to prevent causing and being affected by outside electrical interference.